Six months later, and some things seem to be returning to normal in DC. The Pentagon has been mostly rebuilt, and I recently heard that they're actually ahead of schedule for the military's goal to have everyone back at their stations by the one year anniversary. The Cherry Blossom Festival is getting ready to start in a few weeks. And in the surest sign of normalcy, gossip has again turned to political scandal with Chandra Levy, and Gary Conduit's failure in the primaries.

And yet its still different. As a staple exhibit in the recently-closed Newseum, they would daily post the front page of something like 100 major newspapers from around the globe. Long after the rest of the papers had turned their coverage to other matters like Enron, or back to coverage of local news and sports, the Washington Post always stood out in that exhibit for continuing to run major frontpage stories highlighting terrorism.

I've long heard about there being a different mentality living inside the Beltway, and I'm starting to understand that mindset. I read stories talking about the plausability of Al Qaeda having an old Soviet briefcase nukes. And then you stop and realize that if they do, and if they were to use it somewhere in America, it won't be in the middle of the Great Plains. It's going to be set off in New York or Washington. Maybe LA. Although if they're smart, they won't do anything in Alanta, lest they risk taking CNN off the air. ;)

And that's a really sobering thought to think about the possibility of being interviewed by a modern John Hersey. It's not something you can actively do anything about, so you try to put it out of your mind and go about your day. Much like when the anthrax attacks were happening, you rationalize that the chances of it actually happening to you are next to nil...but then, much like you think when you open your mailbox and see the phone bill has an "irradiated" sticker on it, you stop and wonder.

I spend a lot of time thinking about what's happening with this war on terrorism. I don't like the thought of living in fear about opening my mail or getting on a plane; I don't like the thought of one day trying to raise a family and worrying about someone's deathwish trying to take my loved ones with them. And so I recognize the power of the argument that we must take action against the terrorists. And I remember the comments from a PolySci prof at Chicago who once talked about the dirty fact that most Americans don't like to think about, which is that the United States is a very efficient killing machine, and if there are any doubts about that to think about the prescence of American Indians today compared to 300 years ago. But at the same time, I think about this image I have inside my head of a little boy, bruised and bloodied, crawling through the wreckage of a bomb crater in Afghanistan to where the broken remains of his father lay amidst the rubble, and looking skyward to the American jets streaking through the air with rage and hatred in his eyes. And in his desire for revenge, would he then be the one to go out and use a nuclear weapon in a terrorist act?

I'm afraid that my lifetime will see another nuclear explosion. I worry that too many people today have forgotten the incredible effects upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and don't realize the magnitude of difference that a half century of refinement has had on the explosive potential of modern nuclear arms. I remember in the days immediately after the 11th, listening to conversations of people out here whom I would otherwise characterize as highly intelligent and rational thinkers quite seriously talking about initiating a nuclear exchange, and being very scared by the earnestness of their views. And these were stable people, not the ones who fanatically celebrate suicide-bombers.

One of the things that I think is so important about what happened though, is that it forces a question of self-image upon ourselves and our nation. How do we react? What do we do to commemorate and memorialize what happened? What is our response to those who perpetrated this, and how close does it come to what we claim as our core values?

I was watching some of the special on CBS last night about the firefighters in New York. It reminded me of a job I had in mid-October: a few days after the 11th, there was a convention of firefighters in Phoenix, and I was summarizing evaluations from that convention. Naturally, the scheduled program was modified somewhat, and many of the speakers worked to try and comfort those in attendence. The power and depth of emotion in some of the comments from those evaluations was striking. And I was further reminded as I was watching the CBS special about an encounter I had with a NY firefighter here in DC at National Cathedral a month or two afterwards: I had seen their NYFD jacket on, and had gone up to express gratitude to them and thank them for their effort. The look in their eyes as they turned to me is one I don't think I will ever forget: it contained every emotion a human can express -- sadness, anger, gratitude, the entire gamute.

I have a friend in the Midwest who has on a few occassions expressed a backlash of anger in response to ensuing activities, because they have seen people in their city wearing NYFD clothes as a fashion statement, rather than as an honorific tribute. They are upset at what they perceive is a continual public show by media columnists talking about how they hugged their kids when they came home from work, and that expression of heartfelt emotion is instead just another act of keeping-up-with-the-Joneses.

So how do we treat Sept. 11th? I've heard some suggest an analagous thought process to baseball: the major leagues had every team retire Jackie Robinson's number, under the premise that a father and son would take in a ball game, and the little boy would ask "daddy, who was Jackie Robinson?", and that we should make the 11th a holiday or mandate flag displays in public areas, or some such, so that future generations would stop and ask "Why is the 11th important?" and would be told the story of what happened. Howard Kurtz actually had an interesting article in March 11th's Washington Post that touched on the idea of commemorating the 11th.

I know for the first time in my life, I have a bumper sticker on my car, reminding us never to forget. And I had a rather long discussion about a week or two ago with someone here about patriotic songs, and the merits of those that drifted towards the blindly nationalistic, versus those that celebrated virtues of freedom and democracy and historical sacrifices in wartime to preserve the principles imbedded in the Constitution; and in particular in our conversation, I was talking about how I reacted differently to some of those today than I used to. Should Sept. 11th become a national holiday? My gut wants to say yes, that it is such a monumental event and such a tragedy that it deserves pause to think about what happened. But I'm not sure: I've thought about other significant events in American history, and don't have an argument any more compelling yet than what one might make for December 7th for Pearl Harbor, or any number of other myriad dates. And I'm not sure that having a holiday is appropriate for a tragedy. Other holidays are celebrations of life and accomplishment, or hopes for the future. And in the strongest case against a holiday, I think about Casmir Pulaski, and how many of my classmates in grade and high school knew and cared about him or his accomplishments, versus those who just made jokes about the Polish lobby in Chicago giving them a day to sit at home and play video games. (FYI for those who don't know -- Pulaski was a Polish hero in the American military, who has a state holiday for him in IL.)

I sometimes worry that I am belabouring a point by continuing to write about this and bring up the events of the 11th periodically. But there are a few reasons in my mind for doing so: foremost, it is a kind of therapy, and that talking about events and taking the time to sit down and verbalize them is a way to work through living 5 miles from where 189 people suddenly had their lives snuffed out one fall morning. I want to try and put on record my thoughts on the subject, so that if something more does happen, those whom I would leave behind could speak up and say "this is what he would have wanted" when it would come to the issue of revenge or justice or commemoration. I think also, there is a bit of the historian in me shining through: that I have an obligation to preserve some of my thoughts for the future both as a personal way to tell my future family what transpired, and for the future historian who might one day sift through archival remains to find out about the experiences of those who lived through the turn of the millenia. I've conversed with people at several points about how I have chosen a very interesting time to be living in Washington; it remains yet to be seen whether it is a good time to be living here, but it is undeniably an interesting one, starting with the 2000 presidential election, through the events of Sept. 11th, and on to who knows where the future will lead. And that as someone who is living here, and in a way experiencing all this firsthand, that I must communicate the experience to those who live outside the Beltway what it is like.

It is also in my small way a contribution towards what I feel is a national debate taking place right now on many levels concerning our self-identity. Why do some people hate America with such passion that would motivate them to do something like this? What WILL history write about us, and what will the next generation remember out of the experiences that happen today? Will the innocence and freedom of early September 2001 be lost forever -- I just today heard that South Korea is looking at having as security precautions for the World Cup not just guards and metal detectors, but a full-fledged missle defense system.

I've been making a pictoral chronology of the Pentagon, with photos at 2 days, 1 month, 3 months, 5 1/2 months, and counting. My last trip out there to take pictures, there was a father with a girl who looked to be about 8-10 years old. And he asked if I would take a picture of the two of them with the Pentagon in the backround to preserve a little piece of history. And when I told him to make sure his daughter always remembered, he said that she already knew it was important, and that it had actually been her idea for the trip to see it in person and to take those pictures.

This is less coherent than I might like it to be, but I hope the message gets through nonetheless, and that like me, you will ponder somewhat about the meaning of everything, and that maybe thinking about it will provide the illumination to make the world a little bit better.

Anyway, I will sign off for now. Hope all is well, and that the week ahead will find a cheery St. Patrick's Day for you.